O Ghost Mine
by NetRaptor
Summary: Spider has a ghost for sale for a million glimmer. The man who can afford to buy that ghost is not remotely human and has his own plans that involve a ghost, a dead woman, and the wish of a dragon.
1. Chapter 1

The sign on his cage set his price at one million glimmer.

The ghost paced back and forth, back and forth, seeking some chink in the anti-transmat mesh. All he needed was a tiny hole, and he could dematerialize, feed his atoms through the hole, rematerialize, and escape. But the cage had been made by Eliksni craftsmen to contain the little robots, and the aliens knew their job well.

The Eliksni crime lord known only as the Spider kept the ghost in the back room of his hideout, one more item on the black market. Every so often, Spider's customers would enter the room to survey his wares. Other Eliksni. A disgraced Cabal legionnaire. Shifty-looking Awoken. Guardians pretending they weren't.

The ghost cowered at the back of his cage whenever anyone entered. The black aura of Darkness around them made him shudder. But when a Guardian came through, shining with ill-concealed Light, he flew to the bars and begged in a whisper, "Please, please let me out. You have a ghost, don't you? Would you want them trapped like this? Please, just open my cage a crack. My Guardian is out there. I need to find them!"

But the Guardians avoided his gaze and ignored his pleading, especially after a glance at his price tag. Instead, they bought illegally modified weapons, raw Queensfoil, liquid ether, delicate spin metal, or any other of the multitude of strange items that Spider acquired through his contacts.

Sometimes, Spider, himself waddled through, inspecting the goods, arranging them in enticing rows. He was a huge Eliksni who weighed upward of a thousand pounds, most of his weight in his huge paunch. The ghost tried to hide in the back of his cage whenever Spider came in.

The huge clawed hands always picked up the cage, holding it close to the four glowing eyes. "Still alive, are you?" Spider chuckled wheezily. "If you damage yourself in any way, you'll join the rest of the little flies around my throne."

The ghost had seen them: mesh bags full of dead ghosts.

"I'm f-fine," the ghost stammered. "I'm in prime condition. Uh. Sir. Please don't hurt me, oh, oh, please let me go!"

"Not a chance," Spider said, setting his cage back on the table beside an immense rocket launcher called a Gjallarhorn. "Your price is only a modest markup of what I paid for you. You're what they call an investment."

Days passed. Weeks. Months. The ghost's existence was hours of dreary misery punctuated by moments of terror. He spent a whole day nearly catatonic with fear when an Eliksni captain produced almost enough glimmer and haggled with Spider for hours. From what he overheard of their conversation, the ghost gathered that he was to be an experiment in which a High Servitor would try to absorb his spark.

But Spider wouldn't lower his price. The captain departed, muttering under his breath. The ghost stayed within the relative safety of his cage.

During the days when nobody visited the black market, the ghost dreamed of his Guardian. All ghosts had been created to find their Guardian, that special soul best suited to bond with the ghost's particular spark. This bond enabled the ghost to heal and resurrect their partner, granting them immortality as long as the ghost survived.

This ghost had never taken a name, hoping that his Guardian would name him. Sometimes Guardians let their ghosts name them. He already had two picked out: Athena if his Guardian was a woman, and Gilgamesh if his Guardian was a man. Fine warrior names. Of course, if his Guardian remembered their name, he would be fine with whatever that might be.

But with every day he spent in the cage, the more his dream of his Guardian faded. Eventually, someone would buy him. And someone who could afford to pay a million glimmer for a ghost would want it very badly. The only people who wanted a ghost that badly would be the kind who would subject a ghost to study, experiments, and other tortures he couldn't even imagine. All for the sake of tapping his Light.

Every day that passed brought him closer and closer to the fate that awaited him. The ghost was wise enough to see it coming. So he dreamed of the Guardian he would never have, looked in vain for holes, and tried to hide from Spider's critical inspections.

* * *

The ghost knew his time was up the moment the Awoken man entered the room.

This Awoken wore fine clothes, blue and purple, embroidered in gold designs. His hair was cut in the latest Reef fashion - shaved on one side, long on the top and other side. His blue face was set in a haughty, shrewd expression that spoke of his distaste for this place and Spider.

"Show me the ghost," he said, refusing even to enter the room.

One of Spider's underlings lifted the cage and carried it into the front room where he presented it to the man. The man took the cage. He and the ghost regarded each other. The ghost had time to catalogue the man's expression, his clothes, and the fierce power of mingled Light and Darkness that boiled within him. A line of white swirled up his cheeks and across his forehead, more elaborate than the usual Awoken birthmarks. Possibly a tattoo.

"Does it speak?" the man demanded. "I'll not pay full price if it doesn't speak."

"Of course it speaks," Spider growled. "Ghost, introduce yourself."

"Hello," the ghost said, deadpan in his despair. "You're not like the rest. You're going to buy me."

The man grunted. "It appears functional. But how do I know it's not a fraud? I've seen replica ghosts that moved and talked."

"Spider doesn't sell replica ghosts," Spider said, offended. "Besides, a replica ghost wouldn't beg for release the way this one does."

"Oh really." The client returned his gaze to the ghost. His fingers moved to the latch on the cage. "Maybe I should just ... open this."

"No," Spider barked.

At the same time, the ghost jumped, his eye flashing brightly, pushing against the door, ready to escape the instant it opened.

The man smiled and withdrew his hand. "I think not, little ghost."

"Oh please!" the ghost burst out. "You don't know what it's like! Please free me!"

The man smiled at the ghost - a hard, cold smile. "Ah. You've been caged a long time." His expression shifted, then, a little sorrow shining through the mask. For an instant, the ghost glimpsed the person behind the hard eyes, the haughty expression and fine clothes. A person as trapped and lonely as himself.

"I wish you were my Guardian," the ghost whispered.

At that moment, he meant it with his whole spark. He would take an Awoken - anyone - to escape Spider and the clientele who visited him. But a Guardian must be dead, first. Very few ghosts found a living Guardian. Either way, this man was not what he seemed. The ghost would take any hint of goodness he could find.

The man's eyes widened a fraction, barely a flicker of eyelids. The mingled Light and Darkness inside him seethed as if he had suddenly grown agitated.

"No, you don't," he muttered. The man set the cage on a tiny table. To Spider, he said, "I'm convinced that it's genuine. Now. The glimmer."

The man lifted a lock box into sight and opened it. Inside were stacks of glimmer - enormous chunks worth ten thousand bits each. The ghost's eye contracted to a dot. He'd never seen so much glimmer in his entire life.

Spider examined the glimmer carefully, producing a little electronic instrument to count it milligram by milligram. This took some time. The Awoken man stood by, his green eyes glinting with impatience.

The ghost trembled. He was being sold. Who knew what this rich man wanted with a ghost. The Awoken had strange affinities with Light and Darkness. This man had power enough to kill Spider where he sat on his throne, and they all knew it. A ghost was probably one more augment to that power.

Finally, Spider was satisfied that the million glimmer was present. The ghost in his cage was shut in the empty lockbox, and the Awoken carried him out.

The ghost stayed in the darkness of the lockbox a long time. He heard the rumble of a ship and felt the thrust of takeoff. He had time to die a thousand deaths of fear, to imagine every possibility an Awoken might have for a ghost. A gift to the queen? Cut apart, his Light siphoned away? Taken to a Techeun lab for study, where they'd fill his core with Darkness?

The ghost regretted ever visiting the Reef. Why had he been so determined to seek his Guardian among the derelict ships of the asteroid belt? He'd sneaked from ship to ship, smuggling himself on cargo freighters and jumpships. Then he had meticulously searched each huge asteroid and the ships lashed to it, terraformed and unprotected alike. He'd wandered atmosphere and vacuum, his robotic body unaffected by flying dust and radiation. Then, one day, he'd roamed too close to a den of Fallen, and one had trapped him in a net. The alien gleefully sold him to Spider, and was likely living the high life somewhere on the inner planets.

The ghost waited for that lockbox to open. When it did, he'd face his doom. If only they'd kill him quickly. He couldn't bear the thought of being tormented for years - if any torment was worse than knowing he'd never find his Guardian and see the Light return to their eyes.

* * *

The lockbox clicked and opened. The ghost blinked as bright light streamed in and illuminated his cage. The Awoken man lifted out the cage and set it on a tiny table.

They were in the engine room of a space ship - a fairly large space ship, if the size of the reactor was any indication. It hummed a few feet away, a great cylinder ringed by pipes and cables.

The Awoken man had exchanged his fine clothes for a set of greasy coveralls. But his face and hands were too clean to match the grease, his expression too aristocratic. Beside the cage, a set of tools were laid on a cloth. Fine, sharp tools for maintaining ghosts. Or pulling them apart. The ghost shivered.

"I am Rex Magtoris," the man said. "You will address me as Guardian."

"But ... you're not my Guardian," the ghost protested.

"You will act as if I were," Rex replied. "I'm going to open this cage in a moment. If you try to escape, please note that we are currently traveling at near light speed, and exiting the ship will destroy you."

The ghost's gaze turned unwillingly to the tools. "Are you going to hurt me?"

"Not if you cooperate," Rex replied. "I'm going to change your shell. That's all." He opened another box sitting nearby and produced a brand-new shell. It was deep blue and sparkled like stars on a clear night. The ghost gasped in awe.

"Do you agree to cooperate?" Rex asked.

"Yes," the ghost said. "I give you my word."

Rex gazed at the ghost a moment, his glowing green eyes wary. Then he snapped open the lock and raised the lid. Before the ghost could move, Rex grabbed him with one lightning-quick movement.

"Sorry," Rex said, lifting the ghost free of the box and looking at the frightened blue eye. "I long ago learned to take no one at their word. Even a little spark like you."

The ghost expected the worst at that point, but all Rex did was detach the old shell and attach the new one. He gripped the ghost's core firmly, but not enough to crush the thin metal. When the new shell was in place, Rex released the ghost.

The ghost floated into the air, opening and closing the star-shell, spinning it into place around himself. "It's beautiful," he said. "But I don't understand why you're doing any of this. A new shell? And I'm to call you Guardian?"

"My reasons are my own," Rex replied. "Now. That shell of yours may be beautiful. But it carries a deadman switch. In your case, a dead ghost switch." He lifted one hand, displaying a metal band around his wrist. "You are now wired with an explosive. Should you travel more than three hundred feet from my location, the signal from my band will fail, and your shell will detonate."

The ghost floated very still, his eye contracted to a terrified dot. He didn't even dare move. Where was the charge? Could he detect it inside his own shell? He was afraid to look. What if he set it off?

Rex smiled. "This is to ensure that you don't forget that I'm your guardian and wander off looking for one. You belong to me. Understand?"

"Y-yes, Guardian," the ghost said meekly.

"Good." Rex put away the tools and discarded the old, safe shell. Then he set off through the ship's corridors without a backward glance. The ghost followed him.


	2. Chapter 2: Infiltration

After a few minutes, they arrived at the cruiser's cockpit. It had four seats, all of which were empty. The lights on the control panel showed that the AI was flying. Outside the windows was the smear of color typical of near light speed travel.

Rex settled himself in the primary pilot seat and attended to the instruments for a while. He paid no further attention to the ghost.

The ghost ventured to look around at the seats, the control panel, and especially at his new, fake Guardian. For a fleeting second, he had wished Rex would be his Guardian, and now he regretted it. Being purchased by a rich man was just as awful as he had thought.

The ghost opened his shell, expanding into a sphere of Light, and examined each segment of his shell. The explosive was a tiny dab of C4 putty with a remote detonator in it. He never would have noticed it had he not been looking. There was no microchip, nothing to hack or disable. Rex had planned wisely.

Then the ghost turned his attention to Rex, himself. An Awoken man of undetermined age, typical of the race manufactured from human stock at the edge of Light and Darkness. The mingled powers within Rex seethed close to the surface, as if he was barely restraining himself from destroying everything around him. His blue skin swirled with faint patterns of Light. If he was the ghost's true Guardian, he would have to die in order for the ghost to detect the delicate shape of his spark. And at the moment, the ghost hoped his Guardian was far away from here. No Guardian would ever equip his ghost with an explosive.

Rex looked up suddenly, making the ghost flinch and clap his segments back together, hiding his Light.

"Guardians name their ghosts, don't they?" Rex said.

"Um ... yes," the ghost said. "But you're not ..." He halted himself before he could finish the sentence. Rex's eyes had widened ominously.

"I am your Guardian, now," Rex said clearly and quietly.

"You're my Guardian, now," the ghost repeated meekly.

Rex nodded approval. "Your name is Aster. After the star flower."

The ghost nodded and said nothing, but confusion swirled inside him. This fearsome man was naming him after a flower? It couldn't be the ghost's true name - only a Guardian or the ghost, itself, was allowed to name a ghost. This situation was strange, uncomfortable, and frightening.

Rex turned back to the instrument panel. "When pressed, you will explain that you found your Guardian in the Reef. We have been together only a few short weeks. Have you got that?"

Aster nodded. If he could have gulped, he would have. "Who ... who might question me?"

"No one," Rex said sharply. "And you will not ask for help or otherwise imply that I am not your Guardian. I can set off the deadman switch manually at any time."

Aster cringed away from him and flew around the cockpit. Trapped. Secrets. The threat of instant death hanging over him. He flew in quick circles.

Despite being a different type of prisoner, it was a relief to be free of the cage. He zipped here and there and turned flips, silently exulting in the freedom to roam about. It was the single bright spot in his life right now.

The ship pinged an alert that they were about to drop out of NLS. The ghost landed on the back of Rex's seat and braced himself for the inevitable lurch and jolt. When it came, it was smoother than he'd expected. The cruiser was gentler on its occupants than jumpships Aster had ridden.

Earth swept into sight outside their left-hand viewport. The Traveler floated beside it, a tiny moon hiding within the atmosphere of the greater celestial body. Aster gazed at it in astonishment as the cruiser dipped into reentry. They were burning a course toward the Last City.

This told him a few things.

They were either visiting the City, with Rex disguised as a Guardian.

Or they were planning to infiltrate the Vanguard.

Both options sent shivers through Aster. He couldn't tell anyone that he was a prisoner or Rex would blow him up. Aster couldn't turn Rex over to the Vanguard as a spy or Rex would blow him up. His only hope was that Rex didn't plan to kill anyone, or steal information, or otherwise drag Aster into criminal activities.

But only a criminal would strap a ghost with explosives.

Increasingly nervous, Aster waited until the reentry burn ended and Rex had hailed the Tower air traffic controller - under a standard Guardian code, Aster noticed. Then he ventured, "Are we visiting the Last City?"

"You'll find out," Rex replied. "Don't ask questions. You might not like the answers."

Aster floated at his false Guardian's shoulder and watched their approach to the hanger in the Tower.

They landed in an open docking bay. Rex shut everything down, glanced at Aster to make sure he was in attendance, then transmatted out of the ship in a swirl of particles. Aster went with him.

Rex walked through the hanger and into the Tower walk, the new headquarters further down the City wall after the Red War had damaged the old Tower. Nobody looked twice at Rex with his greasy coveralls and ghost. Guardians and civilians moved about, many wearing similar clothing, others in robes, cloaks, and armor.

To his chagrin, Aster's sparkly shell flashed in the sunlight, drawing admiring looks from other Guardians and ghosts. A few ghosts even asked him over the Light link, "Where did your Guardian find that shell?"

"In the Reef," Aster replied each time. They would never know how much he feared and loathed that shell, with its secret, deadly cargo.

Rex arrived in a small plaza, where Guardians moved about in crowds, or visited little shops to speak to vendors, or collect mail. Rex hesitated for the first time, scanning the vendors and people. Aster again caught that look on his face - the haughty, confident mask slipped a little, showing loneliness and uncertainty. But the Awoken smoothed it away, the mask slipping into place once more.

He approached a fellow Awoken man, this one a Guardian in leather Hunter armor. "Excuse me, sir. Is Lord Shaxx still around? I'm unfamiliar with this new layout."

"Been offworld?" the other Awoken laughed. "Took me a while, too. Shaxx is way down at that end, now. Follow the yelling when he's commentating a Crucible match."

Rex bowed slightly, one hand before his face in the Reefborn Awoken fashion. "Thank you for your assistance."

The guardian nodded. "No problem."

Rex and Aster made their way down a long wing of the plaza, to a wide balcony made up as an untidy sort of office. A salvaged carpet covered the ground, and Lord Shaxx stood there, surrounded by Guardians. Everyone held tablets, registering for Crucible matches.

Rex and Aster loitered in the background, waiting for the crowd to disperse. They had time to count the eighteen helmets of Cabal legionnaires piled against the parapet behind Shaxx. There was also a battered skull of a tusked animal hanging in a net near the balcony roof. Rex gazed at it for so long that Aster became interested. He scanned the skull and analyzed it, looking for an identification marker in the Vanguard database.

Ahamkara.

Lord Shaxx kept the skull of one of the wish-dragons there in his work space. Didn't he know that they whispered to people, seeking to control them? Aster shivered just looking at it.

Rex said nothing, only moved until he stood beneath the hanging skull. He reached up and ran his fingertips along one of the long, curved tusks, then shook his head in regret.

"Can I help you, Guardian?" Shaxx boomed.

The crowd had left and Lord Shaxx was alone. He was a huge Titan in orange and white armor, standing a full head taller than Rex. His helmet had once had two horns, like a Viking, but one had been snapped off long ago.

Rex bowed crisply. "Thank you, sir. I wish to ask a question."

"About the Crucible?" Shaxx said, and laughed.

"No, actually," Rex replied. "I'm trying to find someone. Do you remember a female Titan called Guinevere? She participated in the Great Hunt alongside you and several others."

Shaxx nodded. "That I do."

"Does she still live?"

Shaxx made a sound as if sucking in a breath through his teeth. "She disappeared during the Red War, Guardian. Pity, too, she was one of my best players. Missing in action."

Again, Rex's mask slipped. Aster glimpsed the true person behind the controlled exterior - Rex was dismayed by this news. More than dismayed. Crushed. He looked as if Shaxx had just punched him in the stomach.

Shaxx must have noticed, too. He tried to lower his voice. "She was working an assignment on the moon when the Red Legion attacked us. The moon is currently quarantined, but we maintain a small presence there to observe the movements of the Hive. If you wish to learn what became of her, you might start there."

Rex didn't answer for a long moment. His green eyes stared into the distance, as if he was thinking very hard. Then he seemed to come back to himself and bowed to Shaxx. "Thank you for the assistance, sir."

Rex moved away into the maze of the Tower walk, not seeming to care where he ended up. Aster followed, trying to understand what he'd just seen. Rex was looking for a female Titan. She was probably dead. Rex was upset. Was she an old friend? A lover? Aster watched Rex's distant expression and was inclined to think his second guess was right.

The ghost built a story around this. An Awoken and a Guardian have a relationship, but break up for whatever reason. The Awoken decides he wants to see her again, disguises himself as a Guardian in order to speak to other Guardians and find Guinevere. But she was dead, and now he was sad.

"Did Guinevere mean a lot to you?" Aster asked softly.

Rex gave the ghost a disgusted look. "What makes you think that?"

"Your expression when Shaxx told you the news. Was she your lover?"

"Are all ghosts so inclined to melodrama?" Rex replied. "No. Guinevere did me a grave wrong. She will make it right or die. If she is already dead, this complicates matters." He leaned against a wall in a quiet corner and watched the Tower traffic rush by. Aster floated at his shoulder, revising the story he'd concocted. Guinevere was no lover, then. An enemy. His false Guardian was bent on revenge. Aster tried to parse this with the sick, wounded expression Rex had worn when Shaxx broke the news. One did not grow that upset at the news of an enemy's death. And why impersonate a Guardian to find out about it, anyway? Wouldn't it have been easier to hack the Vanguard's personnel records?

This matter was stranger and more complex than the ghost had first thought.

Rex stood against the wall for some time, deep in thought, tugging his lower lip. The Light patterns beneath his skin swirled furiously, indicating elevated blood pressure. Aster stayed close, one more loyal ghost in a glittering shell, when in reality he wanted to disappear and flee far away from this man and his plots.

"Are we planning to murder a Guardian, then?" Aster said in despair.

"I doubt it," Rex replied. "One can't murder the dead." He lifted his head and inhaled. "But we can track down her remains. True death is difficult for Guardians, and some power remains to me. She'll not escape me so easily."

Rex returned to the ship, Aster accompanying him. Rex went to the cockpit and sat in the pilot seat, but made no move to depart. He rotated the chair and sat there in silence, gazing at the three empty seats, his green eyes again seeming to look through them into his own thoughts.

After some time, Rex said, "Aster."

"Yes, Guardian?"

"Show me everything the Vanguard knows about the moon and Luna base."

"Everything?" Aster said in dismay. "There's many terabytes of data."

"All of it," Rex said, glaring.

Aster displayed a holographic display and began loading the Vanguard records. Rex swiped a finger through the holographic buttons, pulling up images, reports, files - hundreds of them.

This went on for several hours. Aster grew weary of playing the part of a computer. He also began to marvel at Rex's stamina. The man had neither ate nor slept, yet almost twenty hours had passed. The sun has set outside, the hanger dark, with only a few lights burning near the walkways.

"Must we keep doing this?" Aster asked. "Surely you need food and sleep."

"No," Rex replied, and kept searching.

Aster put this down to obsession. When a person grew obsessed with a topic, basic physical needs often fell by the wayside. Perhaps the Light and Darkness that burned inside were enough to sustain him.

Rex worked through the night and into the next morning. He collected scraps of data that added to Aster's worry. Guinevere's records. The names of her last known fireteam. Details about the Hive and the Hellmouth. Crota and Eris Morn. The Red War, and what happened when the Guardians lost the Light.

A few terrible ideas began to occur to the ghost. What if his false guardian was planning some sort of necromantic ritual? What if he planned to descend into the Hellmouth, the deep chasm on the moon that led into the Hive-infested caverns and palaces below? He'd take Aster with him. As an unbonded ghost, Aster had no protection from the aliens, their vicious weapons, and black paracausal magic.

Rex ran across one file that halted his research. It was a note - barely a footnote - about a fireteam that included a Fallen captain called Mithrax.

Rex brooded over this file for some time. He cross-indexed Mithrax, but found little else, except that he was trying to build a new Fallen clan called the House of Light.

Finally, Rex stood up and stretched. "I'm done, Aster."

The ghost closed his interface in relief. But before he could rest at all, Rex said, "Locate the name of the fireteam containing Mithrax. All fire teams are registered in the Vanguard servers."

Aster tried not to groan. He opened his shell to better capture wireless signals and logged onto the public Vanguard servers. He located the directories of fire teams, then hunted for Mithrax.

A few seconds later, he turned to his companion. "Mithrax belongs to Fireteam Aurora, Guardian."

"Aurora," Rex repeated, his green eyes taking on that deeply thoughtful look. He mused on it for a long moment, then focused on the ghost. "Hail their ghosts. Ask if they would be willing to meet with a ... fellow Guardian." He said this with a smile, as if even he couldn't keep a straight face anymore.

Aster sent the message. As he waited for a response, he said, "I thought the Awoken despised Guardians. Why are you impersonating one?"

"That's my own business," Rex replied. "You'd be wise to mind yours."

Aster gazed at Rex through the glow of his own Light field. He was nothing but a useful tool to this man. Not a friend. Not even a teammate. Only an object to be used and discarded, like an old tablet that had shorted out. In that moment, the ghost found this desperately depressing. He had been designed to be a friend and companion to his Guardian. Being relegated to the status of a convenient toy was galling. Even his name wasn't his own, not really. He'd answer to Aster, but as soon as Rex was finished with him, the ghost was putting the breadth of the solar system between them.

Assuming the Awoken sorcerer didn't simply kill him.

As Aster brooded about this, a response came from a ghost on Fireteam Aurora. "Hello, and welcome! We could always use a new friends. If your Guardian needs assistance, we are currently between jobs. Attached is our coordinates." A series of numbers followed. Aster read them easily.

"The fireteam welcomes us," Aster told Rex. "They're looking for work, and are currently located on Venus."

Rex nodded. "Inform them that I offer a quadruple bounty if they will assist me in locating a missing person on Luna."

Aster transmitted this. A response returned in less than a minute. "We are very interested! Please specify a meeting location. Luna is quarantined and highly dangerous."

"We will met them on Venus," Rex said. "Departing now. Send them an estimated time of arrival once the ship calculates our jump."

Aster obeyed, glumly. This was one more step toward whatever horrible fate awaited them on the moon.


	3. Chapter 3: Understanding

Fireteam Aurora was camped in a cave halfway up a mountainside, out of the warm Venusian rains. The Traveler's terraforming had turned the planet into a jungle world, lush and green, with active sulphur volcanos spewing blue lava. The Guardians kept a respectful distance from those.

Rex Magtoris climbed the mountainside toward the cave, following a thin path that snaked its way upward. Aster followed along at his shoulder, rain plinking on his sparkly shell. Rex had changed gear once more, this time donning Hunter leathers and a weatherproof cloak and hood.

A ghost floated at the cave entrance, keeping watch. As they neared the cave, the ghost disappeared. A moment later, three Guardians and a Fallen Captain appeared in the cave mouth, gazing down at him. Rex halted and bowed to them, one hand before his face. They nodded and beckoned. Rex climbed the rest of the way.

The team was two hunters, a warlock, and the tall Eliksni captain, Mithrax. One hunter was human, one was Awoken, and the warlock was an Exo. Aster observed that it was a fair sampling of each known variant of the human race. The Eliksni, however, shimmered with a touch of blue Light, instead of the miasma of Darkness that usually encircled his kind.

"Hey," said the human hunter, extending a hand to Rex in the standard Earth greeting. "I'm Timothy, that's Siegfried-8, that's Mithrax, and that's Prince Uldren Sov."

"I told you not to introduce me like that," the Awoken Hunter snapped.

Rex stood frozen, staring at the hunter. So did Aster. How could that be? Uldren Sov had been Taken, and then executed by Guardians. The whole Reef had been talking about it for months, debating the Prince's heinous actions and whether he deserved death. He had always been the darling celebrity of the Awoken, and his downfall was still a topic of delicious gossip.

"My prince," Rex stammered. "You ... you yet live?"

_That's torn it,_ Aster thought._ A new Guardian wouldn't remember the prince._

Uldren pushed back his hood and shook out his hair, shaved on one side, long on the other. His once jet-black hair now had a white streak running through it. "I'm a Lightbearer," he said. "Don't expect me to remember you. Clean slate, new life, nice ghost." He held out a hand and summoned a ghost in a dark pink shell, then let him vanish again.

Rex bowed hastily. "My apologies. I am Rex Magtoris, Guardian of the Light."

"This happens every time another Awoken meets him," Siegfried-8 stage-whispered. "It's embarrassing."

Mithrax, who had stood in silence up to this point, his four arms folded across his body, now nodded to the newcomer. "Is Mithrax, Kell of House Light. Rex Magtoris is old name, not new name. You take it from ghost? Or self?"

Aster felt a stab of savage joy at this. _Here we go. Called out by an Eliksni, and serves him right._

But Rex was too smooth of an operator to be flustered by such a question. "I was resurrected near a town with records of my old life. I refreshed my memory before setting out on my journey. And now, I am seeking a Titan named Guinevere. She was lost on Earth's moon some time ago. I wish to rescue her or recover her remains, if possible. But I need your assistance."

Timothy shifted his weight to one foot. He had the dark skin and strong features of the aboriginal tribes of North America, far in Earth's past. His long black hair was neatly braided. Now he grinned, showing bright white teeth. "You mentioned a quadruple bounty."

"I did," Rex agreed. "If you agree to assist, I'll pay half up front, half when the mission is concluded."

The fireteam glanced at each other. "More glimmer always helps," Uldren said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Especially with our ships needing parts," Timothy muttered.

Siegfried-8 nodded. He was a sleek, human-looking Exo, so well designed that he looked like a human wearing a mask over his eyes. His metal was blue with yellow accents, and his eyes glowed red. "Glad he's paying up front. I wouldn't go near the moon, otherwise."

Mithrax gestured with his lower set of arms - the smaller set, which on Eliksni were capable of more dexterous movement, but were not so strong as the upper pair. He made a remark in sign language. His team chuckled.

"Show us the glimmer, then," Uldren said.

Rex glanced at his ghost and jerked his head at the team. Aster growled inside himself. _He wanted glimmer, he should have told me to transmat it into memory. What do I look like? Magic?_

Fortunately, this area of Venus had a working transmat network. Aster was able to link to the ship's AI, which obligingly tagged the glimmer storage. Aster calculated quadruple bounty - four thousand apiece - then transmatted half of that into a large pile on the floor.

The glimmer arrived in the pale blue blocks of precious programmable matter. It could be changed into any material, and was used as a currency throughout the solar system. Every race wanted it, whether human or alien.

The appearance of the glimmer delighted Fireteam Aurora. They fell to counting it and dividing it up. Rex Magtoris retreated into a corner of the cave, where he leaned against the wall and watched. Aster floated beside him.

"Why hire them?" Aster muttered in Rex's ear. "Half of them are basically fugitives from their own races."

"I didn't know about the prince," Rex whispered. "This complicates matters. I wanted the Eliksni for his knowledge."

"Knowledge of what? The moon?"

"I'm not going to explain anything to you, Aster."

"I'm your ghost, remember? I'm stuck with you, but I don't have to like it."

"Shut up."

"What if I don't? Deadman switch?"

Rex turned his head and stared into the ghost's defiant blue eye. "Don't tempt me."

Aster gazed back, unblinking. The threat of being randomly blown up was beginning to frighten him less and less. Rex wouldn't risk destroying a ghost in front of a team of actual Guardians. They'd turn on him faster than a pack of starving war beasts. In the meantime, Aster had to act like Rex's ghost, but he didn't have to pretend to like Rex. As long as he addressed him as Guardian, he could be as snarky as he liked and Rex couldn't retaliate.

The fireteam summoned their ghosts, who transmatted their share of the glimmer to their ships. Mithrax, lacking a ghost, used a transmat device.

As this was going on, one of the ghosts spoke to Aster over the Light network. "Um ... hello. My name's Pulled Pork, and I had a question."

"Yes?"

"Your tag ... you know, your identification marker? Why does it say unbonded?"

If Aster could have broken out in a cold sweat, he would have. He'd forgotten to mask his tag. All bonded ghosts registered their name and their guardian's name together. An unbonded ghost had only their name or numeric identifier. Aster's tag still had only numbers. He'd masked it in the Tower, but forgot about it on the way to Venus.

He masked it now, hiding his mistake. "Oh, that's nothing. I forgot to update it."

"But," Pulled Pork said in confusion, "the tag auto-updates when you find your guardian. Is Rex Magtoris not yours?"

Aster dithered, wondering how to answer. On one hand, blowing his cover risked his life. On the other, Rex wouldn't risk destroying him in front of real Guardians. And it would be wonderful to have an ally on the team who knew what was up.

"Don't tell anyone," Aster whispered. "Not even your Guardian. But Rex isn't a Guardian at all. I'm his cover for finding this girl he's after."

"Is he your friend? You don't act like friends."

Aster thought of the C4 in his shell. "It's complicated."

Pulled Pork said nothing more. Aster kept a sharp eye on Uldren, to whom the ghost belonged, but he was laughing with Seigfried-8 and seemed to have no idea what his ghost had just learned.

A few minutes later, the group left the shelter of the cave and transmatted to their ships rather than walk through the rain. They took off, assumed a traveling formation, and left Venus for Earth's moon.

Aster kept his tag masked.

* * *

Rex Magtoris was not his name.

He was forgetting his real name, the beautiful cascading syllables of meaning. He was forgetting everything. Even now, sitting in his ship with the ghost at his shoulder, he could barely remember what it felt like to stretch his wings, to swing his tail, to twist and glide in glorious flight, to feast on the desire of the sapient. Humanity was overriding his true nature, even the ascended humanity of the Awoken.

Sometimes, he went days or weeks without noticing how human he'd become. His position in the Reef as east ridge Satrap consumed his time and energy, even as it provided him with much glimmer and many creature comforts. He hadn't cared about the Awoken people, at first. The position had been a means to an end. But after nearly a century of looking after the settlements scratched into the asteroids, using his superior mind to improve the lives of the people under his care, he had begun to change. Not physically, not the way his species usually did, but inside, where it didn't show. Rex Magtoris had learned to care about others. It frightened him. Caring for others was a human weakness to be exploited and fed upon, yet he had fallen into that same trap.

He sat with his head in his hands, watching the instrument panel as they winged toward Luna. The ghost thoroughly hated him, which he found amusing and depressing at once. But he could think of no other way to make it stay with him than by threatening it. It even dared to sass him, now. He didn't mind. In fact, he welcomed its nasty attitude. Once it figured out what he was, it would be too afraid to speak to him ever again.

Maybe he could use this fireteam to regain his real form, if Guinevere proved to be out of reach. He'd have to groom their thoughts, direct their desires, plant ideas and emotions so they'd want ...

Manipulation. It turned his stomach. It was the way of his race, yet the humanity in his nature had grown to hate it. This part of him whispered that there was no harm in remaining human forever. Leave the claws and scales locked away, dormant and dwindling.

Riven had laughed at him. She of the thousand voices, mistress of manipulation, had identified him the second he appeared before the Queen to accept his position. This had been long before Mara Sov's apparent death, long before Riven had been Taken.

"Why do you take such shape? It is beneath you. Look upon my glittering scales, my beautiful wings and mane. Are you not jealous?"

He had not answered her, but he had tasted bitterness upon his tongue.

Riven had told the Queen, but the Queen granted him the position anyway.

Perhaps she had known the binding upon him, the power holding him in human form. Mara Sov knew many things. And Rex had been good to her people.

But one day, a few weeks ago, he had tried to remember how to use his power and found it gone.

Oh, plenty of Light and Darkness mingled within him. But those were powers of the Awoken and accompanied his form. They had strengthened with the long years. But his true power - the ability to feed on desire and shape reality to match it - was now so faded, he could barely find it. So, too, was his true shape.

He had panicked. Leaving his post in the care of his subordinates, he'd secured a ghost and set off into the lair of the Guardians to find the one who had laid the curse on him. And she had the nerve to be dead.

Blast Guinevere and her Light. He would scrape her spark from the depths of time and space, drag her back to this world, and force her to break the curse. He had dredged up enough power to do that much. After that, he'd take to the stars and leave this system, following the migration of his kind across the galaxies. The feast of desire upon these worlds had grown foul to his teeth.

Lust and covetousness - those desires were a delight to grant. But for far too long, he had tasted the raw, desperate desire to continue living, to find enough air to breathe and food to eat. He had meant to feed upon the people under his authority, and had pitied them, instead. He had given them air and water, food and shelter. He had to remind himself that he was only doing it as a means to an end - to satisfy their base needs so they would have the freedom for the more delicious desires.

But the next thing the people had desired was to help and love each other, to protect and grow their community. And that, too, tasted unpleasant to him.

So had his humanity grown and his true nature had diminished, weakened by a lack of food.

He must return to his true form before it was entirely lost to him. Before he truly became Rex Magtoris the Awoken, and not Sa-hapth-ra-gwu-ttl-dri-tch, the exalted Ahamkara.

* * *

"How do you expect to resurrect this girl?" the ghost had asked. Twice.

Rex lifted his head and blinked. Aster floated beside him in the cockpit, the very set of his shell conveying peevish temper.

"Because," the ghost went on, "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're not a Guardian, and I'm not your ghost. We don't have a scrap of Light to work with. And if her ghost is dead, which it probably is? She's not coming back."

Rex's temper flickered. "There are other ways of recalling the spark of a dead Guardian. Their souls aren't the same as a regular mortal's. The Traveler has marked them. They're visible. Mobile."

"And if they've already passed into the realm of light?" Aster snapped. "What then, mighty Awoken?"

"Then reality itself must bend," Rex replied.

Aster made a disgusted beeping sound. Had he been human, he would have snorted. "If the Awoken could recall the dead, they wouldn't hate Guardians like they do. You may have a lot of power in there, but resurrection is beyond you. So, I'm thinking you mean necromancy."

"Really," Rex said, sitting back in his chair and lacing his fingers across his chest. "Tell me more about what I intend, _o ghost mine_."

The phrase slipped out - the declaration of dominance and possession that the Ahamkara used to mark their prey. He hadn't used it in decades so as not to blow his cover. He hadn't meant to use it, now.

Aster almost didn't notice it. He spun his sparkling shell and glared. "I think you're going to tap into some foul Hive magic. One of their summoning circles, maybe. And the thing that responds to your call won't be remotely human anymore. And it'll rip you to little pieces, and serve you right." He paused a moment, then tilted himself to one side. "What did you say just now?"

Rex bit his tongue.

"Reviewing log," Aster said. His eye flicked back and forth, as if reading a transcript. "O ghost mine?" His eye fixed on Rex and shrank to a dot. A terrified dot. He slowly backed away until he bumped into the bulkhead opposite.

"I was being sarcastic," Rex said hastily. "Don't think about it too hard."

Aster's blue eye scanned him up and down several times. "Nobody says that ... except Worms. And Ahamkara. And every other Dark-touched monster. Which one are you?"

Rex gazed at the ghost for a long moment. What did it matter if the ghost knew his identity? Once he had his true form back, he was leaving, and the ghost could tell whomever it wanted about him. It was already sworn to secrecy, anyway.

"I am an Ahamkara," Rex replied.

The ghost tried to back away even further and plinked against the bulkhead.

They stared at each other in silence for a long time. Rex didn't know what he'd expected, really. Ghosts were creatures of the Light, and they'd know all about the reasons for the Great Hunt that had driven the wish dragons to extinction in this system. Finally, with a sigh, he turned back to the ship's controls. He gloomily watched the smears of color slide by the windscreen as the ship powered through space at near light speed.

"I wished," Aster said in a small voice.

Rex flinched and covered in face with one hand.

"I wished you could be my Guardian," Aster said, his voice thin with panic. "And you heard me. Did you grant it? But that can't work, can it? Do I owe you a debt?"

"I didn't grant it," Rex snapped, looking up. "I told you there, in the cage. You wished I could be your guardian. I replied, no you don't. I'm losing my power, Aster. Do you understand? I've been in this form too long. I'm more Awoken than dragon. That's why I'm doing this. Guinevere _wished_ me into this body. And only she can _wish_ me out."

Aster stared at him. Slowly his star-studded shell rotated one way, then the other, as if it helped him think.

"So," he said, drawing it out into a question. "That's why you needed me. So the guardians wouldn't find out what you are."

"I see we're coming to an understanding," Rex replied.

The ghost crept toward him through the air, pausing beside the copilot seat, as if thinking of hiding behind it. "Why didn't you explain this earlier? I would have cooperated."

"Would you?" Rex said dryly. "The only things keeping you in this ship right now is our NLS drive and the explosive."

"I might have cooperated," Aster amended. "Anyway, you think your dragon powers can resurrect this girl?"

"If the fireteam wishes it," Rex replied. "I can do anything as long as there's enough desire involved."

Aster studied him, a little disgust returning to his posture. "You would rip a Guardian from her final rest because you're slightly inconvenienced? Taking dragon form will force everyone to kill you. Stay as you are. You're better off."

Rex glared at him. "I thought you understood. I see I was wrong."

"What don't I understand?"

"Imagine for a moment, o ghost mine, that you phased yourself inside a computer and became stuck there. You could utilize all the computer's resources, but you, your ghost self, and your Light, began to fade. The computer became your self. Not the core and shell. Would that be a satisfactory situation?"

Aster thought about it. He looked away. "Of course not."

"Then perhaps you begin to understand, now." Rex watched his instruments, which reported that they were nearing the moon. "Once I regain my true form, I'll leave this system. You'll be free to seek your guardian."

"You don't plan to destroy me for knowing your secret?" Aster said.

"I'm an Ahamkara, not a monster," Rex replied. "I spent my life savings to free you. It would be foolish to throw that glimmer away."

"Thank you," said Aster in a small voice. Then he added, sarcastically, "O guardian mine."

Rex grinned for the first time.


	4. Chapter 4: Luna Base

When their little fleet arrived in lunar orbit, they were hailed by three Vanguard fighters. "Greetings. The moon is quarantined until further notice. Alter course."

Rex sent a response. "We have Vanguard permission to patrol and inspect the Luna base and surroundings. Transmitting credentials."

They were real credentials that Aster had stolen from the Vanguard database, slightly altered to give Fireteam Aurora permission to land. The guard replied after a moment, "Very well. Should you need aid, send word to this frequency."

"Copy that." Rex led his team down to the moon's white-gray surface, still pocked with craters, even after the Golden Age had built an extensive moon base. The Guardians had once held this base against the Hive that had entrenched themselves in the moon. But the Vanguard had made a great error and attempted to fight Crota and the Hive head-on. Thousands of Guardians had met their final deaths in what came to be called the Great Disaster. They withdrew from the moon and left it quarantined - nobody entered, nobody left.

Guinevere had been allowed to patrol, just as they were doing. It was how the Vanguard kept informed of the Hive's movements from afar. But losing the Light while surrounded by Hive had likely been a death sentence.

Aster hoped she had died quickly, she and her ghost together. He had heard stories of the things the Hive did to Guardians. He wouldn't wish any of them on his worst enemy.

Of course, his worst enemy was a beast in man-shape, docking his ship and securing his helmet. How natural Rex Magtoris looked and acted. How had a wish changed him so completely into an Awoken, complete with the race's powers? Aster had heard of the staggering power of the Ahamkara, but seeing Rex drove it home. No wonder the Guardians had deemed their species too dangerous.

The Earth hung in the starry sky to the left, a sapphire disc at half-phase. The fireteam bounced across the dusty, rocky landscape toward Luna base, a collection of faded buildings still standing under an old monorail track. Low gravity made movement easier, not that it mattered much to Aster.

As they walked, Fireteam Aurora talked among themselves over the open frequency.

"And I told him," Siegfried-8 was saying, "don't let those goods slip away, man! He thought the world of her, see. But no, he just wouldn't take that next step."

"I would have," Timothy laughed. "If a girl likes me that much, I definitely wouldn't let her go to waste."

"Which is probably why no girls like you that much," Uldren observed dryly.

"Hey, all the girls love me," Timothy retorted. "Just because I don't have a girlfriend right now doesn't mean I couldn't get one. I notice you're not out hunting pretty faces, Sov."

Uldren snorted. "Girls are a waste of time and resources."

"And half the Reef would throw themselves at him if he glanced in their direction," Siegfried-8 muttered, loudly.

Uldren gave a loud, exasperated sigh.

Mithrax spoke up, his voice scratchy over the radio. "Does am understand, humans choose mates to flavor taste against ideal breeding?"

"We pick whoever we like, yeah," Timothy said. "Eliksni don't?"

"We breed on strong traits," Mithrax replied. "Cunning. Strength. Am healthy. Do you desire females all?"

"Who doesn't?" Siegfried-8 said, drawing a general snicker.

Mithrax gestured, struggling with the language barrier. "Are meaning ... season with breeding. Is always with you?"

"Humans don't have breeding seasons the way Eliksni do," Uldren said.

Mithrax's head turned from side to side, studying his companions in bewilderment. "Humans strange, strange."

"Sorry to interrupt this truly fascinating conversation," Rex Magtoris said, "but we may wish to scope out this area."

He stood atop an empty storage container the size of a boxcar, long since looted. He carried an auto rifle in the crook of one arm, which he used to gesture at the buildings. "There is a Guardian survey station inside. We should check to see if Guinevere ever interacted with it."

"Lead on, then," Timothy said. "This is your gig. We're just here to help kill things."

"And right now," Siegfried said, "there's nothing to kill. Pardon me while I take a nap."

Rex rolled his eyes and glided over the rocky ground to the nearest door. It stood open a crack. He shoved it wider and ventured inside.

The building was black as a carload of Taken, but blue light shimmered on the back wall - the sort of light a computer screen might display. Aster helpfully ignited his headlight and guided Rex around old desks, chairs, and collapsed railings from a nearby staircase.

The screen was built into a wall terminal. The dusty solar collectors outside still provided enough power for it to run. Rex tapped the keyboard and fiddled with the strange programs it displayed.

Aster understood it at a glance. "Golden Age operating system. Pretty simple. Hold down Function and tap the arrows."

Rex obeyed, as if he really was Aster's guardian. He scrolled through the most recent logs, which were dated three months ago. No sign of Guinevere's name. He hunted back through log after log.

Nearly two years back, he found her entry. It was dated the day before the Red War began. Guinevere was part of Fireteam Wonder. They were headed on a long patrol around the backside of the Hellmouth and out to an abandoned settlement on the rim of Mare Imbrium. No further entries had been recorded by her or her team. The following log was from a team that arrived four months later and found no trace of them.

"Not good," Rex muttered, tapping the chin guard of his helmet. "Guardians don't disappear. This trail may be long cold, Aster, but we're going to follow it as we can. Notify the team that we're headed to Mare Imbrium."

Aster obeyed. The team groaned and summoned their sparrows.

"It's six hours to that Light-forsaken crater," Siegfried-8 complained. "Couldn't we just take our jumpships?"

"That means filing more clearance with the Vanguard," Rex growled. "And it would also alert whatever is out there that we're coming."

"But that means sitting on a sparrow seat for six hours!" Siegfried-8 complained.

"Dude, your ass is made of metal," Timothy broke in. "I don't want to hear it."

The fireteam summoned and mounted the hovering motorcycle-like crafts, even Mithrax, who Aster had expected to ride a Fallen pike. Then they sped off across the hilly lunar landscape, Rex Magtoris in the lead. Aster flew at his shoulder, wishing he could phase without setting off the explosive.

The ride was fraught with peril, especially as they skirted the Hellmouth. The huge chasm had been gouged into the moon by the Hive, and they didn't care to have Guardians anywhere near it. The aliens screeched and fired energy bolts, some running after the sparrows for a while. But the swift craft soon outdistanced them.

"Why don't we nuke them from orbit?" Timothy asked. "A couple of nice bombs down the Hellmouth would do wonders."

"Your people don't have the means to build nuclear weapons," Uldren pointed out. "Your uranium mines are held by the Fallen."

"How about the Awoken, then?" Siegfried-8 said. "They've got some hella-nasty weapons. Like those things they used on the Dreadnaught. I mean, they didn't work, but they tore up the tombships. The Harbringers?"

"Might I remind you that I'm a Guardian, now?" Uldren retorted. "I don't _remember._"

"Hive not frightened human bomb," Mithrax said. "Hive frightened Light."

"Then let's drop Light on them," Timothy laughed.

Rex broke in. "We're not here to exterminate the Hive. We're here to recover the remains of a Guardian. Probably three Guardians."

"If they ever made it to Mare Imbrium," Uldren pointed out. "They may have been jumped while passing the Hellmouth. Depends on when they lost the Light."

They debated this for a while, then gradually fell silent as the journey wound on and on. They followed a faint path around rock outcroppings and up and down craters, the sun glaring on the bleak gray soil of the moon's surface. The distant mountains seemed barely an arm's length away, yet they never grew closer. Without any atmosphere in the way to give a sense of perspective, distances on the moon were notoriously hard to judge.

Aster scanned as they flew, expecting monsters to leap out at them any second. It was too easy to imagine a team of Guardians out here, their ghosts gasping and fainting from the loss of Light, fighting and dying their final deaths.

When the Traveler had been caged, Aster had fainted along with his brethren. When he'd awakened, he'd crawled along, staying in hiding, unable to find out what had happened to the Traveler, certain that the final Darkness was upon them. It wasn't something he'd ever forget.

And now, he was expected to act like a bonded ghost, but without the actual bond with a guardian to strengthen him. He was still alone and lonely, but now he was forced to follow Rex Magtoris around out of fear.

There was always the chance that this adventure might lead him to his Guardian. But what bothered Aster the most was that wish he'd made. _I wish you could be my Guardian_. Rex said he hadn't granted it. But the Ahamkara were liars, especially when it came to granting wishes.

Could an Ahamkara grant the wish of a ghost that way? Wouldn't that be tampering with the Traveler's will? Every ghost had been created for a certain Guardian. At least, Aster thought so. He couldn't ask his sibling ghosts without giving himself and Rex away.

The thought haunted him ... that somehow, he had invoked a paracausal power to force this Ahamkara to become his Guardian.

His scans registered a flicker of something on the furthest edge of his range. He chirped to Rex. "I'm picking up something."

Rex looked around, his face hidden by his helmet's sun shield. He slowed his sparrow to a crawl. "What is it?"

Aster flew out into the wasteland to the left, tracking the object. "I think it's a dead ghost."

Rex followed him, and the rest of the team followed Rex.

A hundred yards from the road, Aster found the dead ghost in the shadow of a boulder. It was half-buried in the powdery gray dust, the eye open and dead, fixed steadily up at the Earth, perhaps seeking the Traveler as its spark dimmed. Rex lifted it out of the dust and brushed it off. He held it out for Aster to scan. "What do you make of it?"

As Aster played his scan beam over it, the ghosts of the three Guardians appeared and scanned it, too.

"The memory is intact," said Timothy's ghost.

"Lost her guardian," Siegfried-8's ghost reported. "These logs are tragic."

Aster read them. The ghost's Guardian had been killed by a Hive Knight with a bone sword that drank her Light. Crota's closest followers had carried them, the original weapons of sorrow. The ghost had been injured in the fight, tried to escape, and died while trying to reach Luna Base.

But most worrying was that they had been part of Fireteam Wonder.

"That's not good," Rex muttered when Aster told him this.

Aster waited until they were on the road again with sparrow noise to cover their voices. Then he murmured, "Can you salvage a Guardian's spark after it's been consumed?"

"I can do anything," Rex growled.

"Unless you forgot how," Aster retorted. "O guardian mine."

Rex snorted. "You'd better be careful with that sarcasm, you might cut somebody."

"You'd better still have some power in there," Aster said. "Otherwise this whole jaunt has been for nothing. I hope you like being Awoken."

Rex swatted at him. Aster dodged.

They continued their journey in silence. Aster kept his scans open for any other dead ghosts, but nothing of interest registered. It was a barren landscape of hills, rocks, and the oddly sloped backs of craters all the way to Mare Imbrium.

Mare Imbrium was such a huge crater, it looked more like a flat plain surrounded by mountains. Humanity had built the beginnings of a city there, only to abandon it when the Collapse happened. Buildings, streets, and monorail tracks still stood, coated in dust and falling to pieces with the long centuries. Here and there, a few lights flickered, the solar arrays still functioning.

As they crested the crater's rim and gazed down at the abandoned town, Aster's sensors went crazy. Just as he could see Light and Darkness when looking at sapient beings, he could see it in locations, too. These ruins lay under a pall of Darkness nearly as thick as the one around the Hellmouth.

He shuddered and pressed himself against Rex's shoulder. "So much Darkness," he whispered. "This is a bad place."

Uldren said, "My ghost doesn't want me to go down there."

"Mine, either," Timothy said.

"Same," Siegfried-8 said. "She's crying."

Mithrax gazed closely at each of his companions, his four eyes squinted. "You have Light. Fear no Darkness." He straightened and pressed his two right hands to his heart. "Serve Great Machine. Fear no Darkness."

Rex Magtoris gazed into the ruins. "The Darkness fears me." He gunned his sparrow and shot down the road into the ruins. His companions followed at a more cautious pace.


	5. Chapter 5: Fallen

As they entered the first ruined block, Aster's scans registered hostiles in every building. "Fallen," he told Rex. "Everywhere. You're going to die, o guardian mine, and I can't resurrect you."

"Fallen?" Rex replied, slowing and dismounting from his sparrow. "I can handle Fallen. What about Hive?"

"Not here, I don't think. At least, I'm not picking up their signature."

Rex ducked into an alley and pressed himself against a wall, drawing his auto rifle. Aster wanted to phase, but feared it would trigger the explosive. Instead, he dove into the pocket of Rex's cloak, hiding the tell-tale sparkle of his shell.

The rest of Fireteam Aurora arrived. As they joined Rex in the alley, Mithrax gestured with all four arms. "Must speak. Must speak. My people. Tell them House Light. Please, spare them."

Timothy, Siegfried and Uldren all groaned.

"Here we go again," Timothy said. "This never works out, Mithrax. Especially not in a Darkness zone like this. They probably have Archons driving them to worship the Worms or something."

Mithrax clicked his mandibles and made gestures that were obviously distressed. "Then I must try show them Light. Another way. My people starving."

The tall alien stepped out of the alley and paced toward the door of the nearest building. The fireteam followed him cautiously.

"He's a good guy, Mithrax," Uldren whispered. "But they always call him a heretic and try to kill him. If he didn't have his pet servitor back on his ship to patch him up, he'd have been dead twenty times over by now."

Mithrax peered through a dark doorway, then ducked inside. They heard the startled clamor of alien voices inside, and then Mithrax's voice, speaking Eliksni.

"Can anyone translate?" Rex asked.

The team looked at Uldren. He shrugged. "Fine, fine. It's his usual spiel. My friends and family, I am Mithrax, Kell of the House of Light. I am come to show you a new way. A better way. We fight the humans and scratch out a living among their garbage, but is that the life we Eliksni should aspire to? We do not need to fight them for the Great Machine. It abandoned us when we ceased to serve it and the Light. But if we return to its service, one day it may grant us the Light once more."

The voices of the Eliksni inside the building rose to angry shouts and hissing.

"They're mad," Uldren said, shaking his head. "It always makes them mad. We'll be dragging him out in pieces, like usual."

Rex stood in silence, head tilted as he listened to the growing uproar inside. The translated speech seemed to have troubled him. "He serves an impossible dream."

"Does he, though?" Uldren said. "Ask him about his people sometime. He mourns them. We'll have to kill everything in there, and he'll cry like a baby."

Rex fidgeted with his rifle, as if this upset him. Aster peered out of his pocket and saw his false guardian's mouth set in a grim line, his green eyes bright with emotion.

Mithrax raced outside on all fours, the way Eliksni moved when they needed to cover ground at great speed. He raced across the street and leaped to the top of the nearest building in one powerful bound, three stories straight up - lunar gravity combined with Eliksni strength.

Fallen poured out of the building in his wake - dregs, vandals, multiple captains, and a single, furious Archon who stood taller than Mithrax, himself. With them came several Servitors, like floating metal beach balls with a single purple eye in the center.

The aliens spotted the Guardians and snarled in hate. They opened fire, the archon barking orders.

The guardians ducked into cover and returned fire. It was a furious battle for a while. The Fallen were so angry, they abandoned cover and charged the guardians' position multiple times. Another gang of them hunted Mithrax across the rooftops. Several of them fought him hand to hand with electrified arc blades. Mithrax spoke to them the whole time, pleading and arguing. When he had to kill them, he knelt over each body and murmured a benediction.

* * *

Rex Magtoris inhaled, breathing in the desires of everyone around him. Had he been in his proper body, his tongue would have flicked in and out, in and out, tasting it.

Nearest was the ghost, quivering with fear and the desire to find its guardian. Such a pure wish. It tasted of sand and salt, of loneliness and tears. Not a desire that tempted him.

Beyond the ghost was his fireteam. Their strongest desires at the moment were survival. Again, a powerful desire, but bland, like grass and snow.

Mithrax's desire to bring his people to the Light was interesting. Rex tasted it over and over. It was strong, like coffee, rich like the fat of lambs, self-sacrificing, which added salt and spice. A delicious wish, one worth feeding upon, later.

The real meal were the Fallen. Their desires were full of hate and rage, malice and fear. Especially the Archon, who crackled with Arc bolts that he hurled at the guardians. His desire was to grow ever stronger, to become Kell, himself, to stamp out the humans at last. A powerful desire, dripping with power-lust, seasoned with fear and anger, laced with Darkness like burning pepper and licorice. His followers tasted of the same desire.

But Rex lacked the strength to grant such a huge desire. The one that attracted him the most was the wish of a single vandal.

The vandal had remained inside the building, guarding the doorway with an electrified spear in its hands. But its gaze followed Mithrax. It trembled with the desire to hear more of the Light, to know what this mad captain had to say. It tasted of cool water, of sweet fruit juice, of innocence and longing. A small wish.

Rex smiled. "Ah," he said, and granted that wish.

The desire fed him like a meal, like dessert, nourishing the dragon nature within him. The vandal suddenly had awareness of how and when to speak to Mithrax. It turned away from the door and vanished into the depths of the building.

Rex emerged from his reverie to find a mob of Fallen rushing him, armed with electrified daggers. He raised his auto rifle and killed them, regretfully. Such a waste of life and desire.

The Archon was the problem, the source of the Darkness aura. Rex targeted him, his bullets sparking off a shield of power around the huge alien's body. The Archon felt the impacts and whirled around to stare at him.

For a second, the dragon and the alien gazed into each other's eyes from across the battlefield. The Archon knew instantly that Rex was no Guardian, and not Awoken, either. The alien's four eyes widened, then narrowed. The Eliksni had no love for the Ahamkara. The Archon lifted his staff and pointed at Rex.

"Focus fire on the leader!" Rex yelled to his team.

The Guardians poured bullets into the Archon's shield, even as he gave his army a similar command.

Timothy disappeared. He passed through the ranks of Fallen like smoke, cloaked in near-invisible Void Light, and struck through the Archon's shield with daggers of pure energy.

The shield fell. The Archon slashed at Timothy, but he was no match for the combined onslaught of bullets and Light weapons. The Archon collapsed and died. At once, the Darkness aura grew lighter, the sense of oppression lifting from the ghosts and guardians.

The frenzy driving the other Fallen sudden lessened. They retreated, seeking cover. The Guardians hunted them, cutting them down until none remained alive.

Mithrax walked among the bodies, making a high-pitched keening sound, stooping to touch this one or that one. The guardians watched him as the battle lust slowly faded from them.

"What do we do with the bodies?" Siegfried-8 muttered.

"On Earth we'd burn them," Timothy muttered. "No air here, though."

Uldren folded his arms. "Mithrax makes us honor the dead in Fallen fashion. Looks like we'll be burying them, guys."

The fireteam groaned.

They first scouted the rest of the installation. Their ghosts detected no more Fallen, except for one underground bunker with a locked door. The aliens inside seemed to have no interest in attacking the guardians.

The team located a few tools they could use to dig, and set about shoveling a trench in the rocky soil. As they hauled each body to its grave, they checked it for weapons or any other useful items.

That was how, when they went to bury the Archon, they found the ghost.

It was in a pouch at his hip, a live ghost, but injured, shards of Hive bone stuck through its shell to disable it. Uldren pulled it out, saw its condition, and swore. This drew the attention of the others.

"Why would anyone torture a ghost like this?" Uldren muttered, pulling out the shards. "Don't worry, little guy, we'll have you free in a minute."

"My guardian," the ghost said, his voice scratchy and modulated. "Is she safe?"

The group exchanged a significant glance.

Rex leaned forward. "Who is your guardian?"

"A t-titan," the ghost replied. "Guinevere. The Archon took me in exchange for her good behavior, but it's been six hundred and thirty-two days ..." The ghost tried to float, wobbled in midair, then dropped back into Uldren's hands.

Rex stepped forward, staring at the ghost with razor-edged focus. "Good behavior. Your guardian is a captive?"

"If she still lives," the ghost said, blinking up at him. "Wait ... do I know you?"

"Possibly," Rex said, backing away a step. "Your guardian is not among the slain. Where might she be?"

"They took her underground," the ghost said. "A place with locked doors. My poor, sweet guardian ... I fear they've done nothing but torture her."

Rex clenched his jaw. He and his companions glanced in the direction of the bunker with the metal door shut so tightly. As one, they left the slain aliens and returned through the ruined streets to the bunker, its low concrete roof a flattened dome above the lunar soil.

"I'll look," the wounded ghost said. It made another effort and this time floated into the air, whirling its segments this way and that, as if clawing for balance. Then it disappeared in a flash of blue particles.

The team waited uncomfortably, imagining the horrors that waited below. Their HUD trackers displayed dozens of life signs below. The place was swarming with Fallen. How could one guardian have survived so long without her ghost?

"That's one good thing," Aster said to Rex over the helmet radio. "You won't have to resurrect her."

"I will if that ghost dies," Rex muttered. "It just walked straight into an Eliksni den. And they don't care for ghosts."

"I know," Aster replied. "One called Spider stuck me in a cage and sold me for a million glimmer. Wait. You already know that."

Rex didn't grace this with a response.

The bunker door suddenly clicked and slid open, slowly, revealing an airlock inside. The wounded ghost reappeared. "You may enter," he said to Rex. "The rest of you wait outside."

"Is Guinevere alive?" Rex asked.

The ghost nodded wearily. "Yes, but it's complicated. Leave your weapons. You will not be harmed."

With a nervous glance at his team, Rex leaned his auto rifle against the bunker's outer wall and stepped into the airlock. The outer door closed, plunging him and Aster into darkness. The pressure equalized with a loud hiss, then the inner door opened. Orange light filtered into the airlock room. Rex carefully stepped out and found himself on a landing with a staircase leading down. He descended it, one step at a time.

"I'm detecting movement," Aster whispered. "Tons of it. This place is packed with Fallen. Why didn't they attack us with the rest?"

Rex touched the wall, which was beaded with condensation. "I'm beginning to guess. And I think we've committed an atrocity."

"An atrocity? Doing what? Fighting the aliens who attacked Mithrax?"

"No," Rex said heavily, descending the steps. "We've slaughtered the defenders of the tribe."

They entered the bunker's main room. He was greeted by three female Eliksni, all holding electrified daggers and looking desperate. But standing in front of them, facing him, was a human woman dressed in Eliksni wrappings. Her feet were bare, as the aliens' were, and her head had been shaved in an imitation of a dreg's mohawk. The injured ghost rested in her hands, its eye flickering with exhaustion.

"Gwen," Rex breathed, pulling off his helmet.

"Rex," she replied. Her blue eyes scrutinized his face. "I never expected to see you again. Do you come peacefully?"

"I've come to rescue you. The Archon is dead."

"Ravicks," she whispered. "Thank the Traveler. But ... but the others?"

"We slew them all."

"All?" Guinevere's face turned white. "Every ... all the Eliksni males?"

"If it attacked us, we killed it."

Guinevere turned to the females and spoke in rapid Eliksni. They bowed their heads and made the same keening, wailing sound that Mithrax had.

Rex said nothing, but his expression was hard and grim. Aster peeked over his shoulder and saw why.

The Eliksni that packed the bunker were hatchlings. Dozens and dozens of tiny creatures, barely larger than a man's hand, crawled or played in the space behind the females. Orange lights were set up at intervals to give heat to eggs that hadn't yet hatched. Every hatchling wore a tiny name band around one of its four tiny wrists. Several of them sat up on their hind legs, staring at him, blinking their four large eyes. One of them hissed.

Aster glanced at the females and realized that their abdomens were swollen and lumpy. They were pregnant and nearly ready to lay their eggs. No wonder they gripped their weapons with such desperation.

"Gwen, what are you doing here?" Rex asked.

The human went to the nearest Eliksni female and put her arms around her. The alien wrapped three of its arms around her and hid her face against the back of the human's neck.

"I was taken hostage," Guinevere replied, as casually as if being hugged by a pregnant alien was an everyday occurrence. "I befriended a female in charge of me, and helped her in delivery. By degrees I wound up down here, in the nursery." Her voice turned fierce. "And now look what you've done, you bloody dragon. You've killed the males who protected us. Ravicks was a beast and I'm glad he's dead, but the others! We needed them, Rex!"

"Why?" Rex retorted. "You have enough young in this room to populate half a house. Plus whatever eggs these females lay."

"The Hive," Gwen spat, her eyes flashing. "They constantly attack this settlement. Ravicks was only waiting for this breeding season to end, then we were going to migrate to Earth. And now - they're gone! No one stands between these poor babies and the Hive. All because of you, Rex. Why did you wait a hundred years if you wanted to see me again? I told you to hide."

He drew a quick breath, bit his lip, and scanned the Eliksni to make sure they didn't understand him. "I need you to wish me back to my true form."

"Oh, suicidal, now?" Gwen said. "Just thought you'd butcher your way through a bunch of Fallen to rescue the Guardian you hate most. Do me a favor and go jump off a cliff."

"I'm losing my true self," Rex said, almost pleading. "Every day I become more Awoken and less Ahamkara. Your desire was so strong that I take this form, you can easily desire that I change back."

"And what if I don't?" Gwen snapped, rubbing the female's back. "What if I wish for you to go away and die alone?"

"Nobody would grant that wish," Rex said. "Please, Gwen. You have the strongest mind of any Guardian I know."

She gazed at him, calculating. Finally she released the Eliksni female and stood facing Rex, arms folded. "If you come up with a way to relocate these people to a safe place on Earth, I'll wish you back into your ugly lizard body. You let them die, you can stay as you are. And I might put a bullet in your back."

"Deal," Rex said quickly, before she could change her mind. "I have a class C cruiser from the Reef. It easily has enough room for everyone here."

"Good." Guinevere studied him, her piercing blue eyes missing nothing. "What's the catch?"

"It's docked at Luna Base."

Guinevere closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Rex hurried on, "But my ghost can summon it here, easily."

"Wait. You have a ghost?"

Aster floated into view from his hiding place behind Rex's shoulder.

Guinevere stared at him in confusion. "But ... how can that be? Are you a Guardian?"

Since Guinevere seemed the only person privy to Rex's secrets, Aster said, "He bought me from Spider and strapped me with explosives to make sure I stick with him."

Guinevere stared at the ghost, then Rex. Then she crossed the room in three swift strides and punched Rex in the nose.

Rex hadn't been prepared for this and went down like a bowling pin. Guinevere stood over him, flexing her fist. "You free that ghost right now, you sick beast. Or I will break every bone in your worthless body."

Aster tried to laugh at this. But the sight of the mighty Ahamkara brought low by a punch in the nose upset him, for some reason. He owed Rex nothing and carried a bomb, for the Traveler's sake. Yet, the sight of the blood trickling from Rex's nostrils distressed him. He flew between Rex and Guinevere. "Leave him alone. He's treated me decently, apart from the bomb."

Guinevere glared at him. "He doesn't understand about ghosts. I just got Swallowtail back after two years, and I thought he was dead. I'm just ... touchy." She held out a hand and summoned her ghost, who appeared in a weary swirl of blue particles. She stroked the punctured shell, biting her lower lip. Swallowtail gazed up at her in quiet adoration.

Upstairs, the airlock hissed open, and footsteps descended the stairs. Rex climbed to his feet, wiping his nose. "I told them to wait outside -"

Mithrax came into view, ducking to avoid the low ceiling. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the nursery, he stopped and stared, his four eyes wide.

The females growled and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Guinevere, shielding the young Eliksni from view.

"Your guardian not hurt?" Mithrax said to Rex.

Rex shook his head. "No, she's been helping the females and young."

Mithrax gestured with his lower arms and spoke a torrent of low, gentle Eliksni to the females. They stared at him suspiciously, but a little of the tension relaxed in their coiled limbs. Guinevere listened, too, and asked questions in the same language.

A long conversation followed. Rex retreated to the stairs and sat on a lower step, Aster floating at his shoulder.

"Well," the ghost muttered under cover of the others' talk, "looks like we get to evacuate the women and children. Good going, hero."

Rex rubbed his nose. "As long as it gets my body back. Can you call the ship?"

Aster opened his shell and scanned for a signal. Then he closed it again. "Not from inside this bunker. The walls are too thick. Outside, though, I can bounce the signal through a satellite. It'll take a little time for the ship to arrive. They'll need to pack up."

"Once Mithrax is done proselytizing them," Rex muttered, and Aster snickered. Mithrax was obviously deep in his sermon about serving the Light, and the females were dubious.

As they sat there, one of the ghosts from outside pinged Aster. "We just shot a Hive thrall that was scouting around. They know what happened out here. Is the girl alive?"

Aster updated the other guardians on circumstances. "She won't leave unless we move the Eliksni women and children to a safe place on Earth. I think Mithrax is trying to convert them."

The other ghosts didn't answer for a while, but Aster sensed their consternation. Finally, one of them said, "Well, tell them to hurry up. We're detecting Hive activity in the desert all around. We think they're coming to capture Mare Imbrium."

Aster conveyed this to Rex. Rex sat for a long moment, his gaze flicking around the room, at the Eliksni, and at Guinevere, dressed like an Eliksni Dreg and not a Guardian.


	6. Chapter 6: Battle

Many things were happening inside Rex's head. His end goal was always to regain his dragon body and abandon this system. Every choice he made revolved around that goal, like planets around a star.

Saving the females and young of an Eliksni clan didn't fit with this goal - except where it meant pacifying Guinevere so she would make a wish. Collecting and transporting these soft, helpless creatures would take a tremendous amount of work he didn't want to do.

On the other hand, it would show Guinevere that he meant well, perhaps even had changed. Maybe she'd think well enough of him to wish him back into his body without his having to coax and bribe.

At the same time, his newfound humanity warred with these dragonish appetites. This new part of him was altruistic, saw value in all life, and wanted to protect the weak simply because nobody else would. This part of him hated the dragon for its schemes, hated his self-centered appetites, hated his own mixed nature.

He glared at Mithrax's back, the alien gesturing and speaking so earnestly. The alien's passion to restore his people to the Light grated on Rex's dragon nature and appealed to his human nature. Preaching the Light didn't benefit Mithrax - it had made him an outcast. Why do anything if it didn't benefit you? Maybe it was because Mithrax wanted to be Kell of his own House. But no Eliksni ever went about gathering followers the way Mithrax was doing. They conquered and cowed, they didn't argue and reason. It made no sense to Rex - at least, not to his dragon side.

He finally put his helmet back on, climbed the stairs, and left through the airlock. "Call the ship," he told Aster.

The other guardians were scattered around the ruins, perched on roofs for better sight lines, watching the desert. Siegfried was nearest, kneeling on the rooftop that shaded the bunker. Rex waved to him. "Any news?"

"Hive incoming," the Exo replied. "We might have an hour before they attack. They're amassing on the crater rim, that way." He pointed south.

Rex gnawed his lower lip inside his helmet, where nobody would see. To Aster, he said, "Ship?"

"On its way," the ghost replied, its shell open and revolving around it. "It'll be here in about fifteen minutes. The Vanguard have been hailing us. They're asking if we need help."

Rex kept chewing his lip. The Vanguard would likely bomb the Hive and eliminate the attack force. But they wouldn't look kindly on Guardians relocating Eliksni to Earth - not when the Last City had barely withstood so many attacks from them. The Vanguard would kill the Eliksni, too, and Guinevere would never wish Rex's body back.

It was a puzzle. Normally, Rex Magtoris enjoyed puzzles. But the stakes involved in solving this one were terrifyingly high.

"Tell them we have it covered," he replied. "We'll be evacuating to orbit within two hours."

He picked up his auto rifle and walked about, figuring out the directions the Hive would attack from and places they'd hole up. The ruined town didn't have a lot of defensible positions. Too many corners where a fighter couldn't see what was coming. No wonder the Guardians had taken to the rooftops.

He told himself that the Hive didn't worry him. They had desires to feed upon like every other sapient race. But he wasn't strong enough to feed on the very powerful wishes that would alter reality - only little wishes for psychic benefits. His dragon side was so weak and distant. He felt like one of those soft little Eliksni hatchlings down in the bunker. Much stronger within him were Light and Darkness, powers of sight and motion through the quantum structure of the universe.

He explored the buildings and found a transmat station the aliens had been using. It was a flat disc where one put cargo or people, and a machine that dematerialized it and sent it to any location within range. This would be a great way to move the hatchlings from the bunker to his ship without exposing them to vacuum.

Rex disassembled the transmat station, having Aster keep track of parts and plugs and how they connected. Then he carried it back to the bunker and down through the airlock.

Guinevere and her charges had been busy. Assisted by Mithrax, they had been fetching baskets and boxes, filling them with food and bedding and all the other things young Eliksni needed, and lining them up against the wall. The hatchlings frolicked around these, excited at the prospect of leaving the bunker at last.

"At least you have some sense," Guinevere remarked as Rex began setting up the transmat station.

He glanced at her. A hatchling sat on either shoulder, their little claws gripping her clothes and hair, watching him avidly.

"You don't look like a Guardian," he told her.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "And you don't look like a dragon. Good thing, too. They'd have killed you."

"You didn't have to wish me into this form," he said quietly, working on the transmat station. "I'd have escaped the hunters."

"No, you wouldn't," Gwen replied. "They had your trail, and they never failed to kill their quarry."

He glanced at her again, thinking of how she had looked that day on Io, her Titan armor gleaming in the sun as she had stroked his muzzle and cried.

"You're the only decent Ahamkara there is," she had sobbed. "I won't let them kill you."

He had been younger then, powerful and arrogant in his ignorance of Guardians. He had liked Gwen and refused to grant her wishes. Ahamkara never fed on people they liked. She had visited him whenever she was in the area, bringing him tasty tidbits of animal meat from Earth, as well as books and knowledge, which he craved more than food.

But then the Vanguard decreed that the Ahamkara were to be destroyed because their wishes and bargains were too dangerous. The Great Hunt began.

Gwen had come to his cave, reeking of desire, and told him her idea. She would wish him into another shape, where he could hide. He had argued, afraid of what this might mean. A natural shapeshift could be undone, but a wished one was permanent. But the hunters were landing, and they had lacked time to argue. So the dragon had granted her wish and become Rex Magtoris, Awoken of the Reef.

Usually, when a wish was granted, the wisher now owed the dragon a favor. But Gwen's wish had been to benefit Rex, and he couldn't see how she owed him a favor when she had already given him one. Wishing him back into dragon form worked the same - the rules of his race dictated that he owed her a favor, since he was asking her for a wish.

So he set up the transmat station and counted the minutes until his ship would arrive. And he calculated everything to benefit himself, and despised himself for it.

Guinevere hurried off to keep packing. Mithrax walked up, his head brushing the ceiling. He inspected the transmat station and nodded. "Good, good. Idea right. Ship coming?"

"Less than ten minutes, now," Rex said. He gazed into the alien's four eyes, visible above the face mask, which was currently pulled down to allow Mithrax to speak clearly. "Anybody join your House?"

Mithrax gestured with one upper arm, the equivalent of a shrug. "Perhaps. In time. Time takes to turn over bad teaching. Old memories, old wars. Great Machine left us. Kells blame each other."

"Why do you bother?" Rex asked. "Your people are fallen from the Light. They're happiest when they're infighting."

Mithrax stood there a moment, all four arms hanging at his sides, looking dejected. Then he raised his head and inhaled. "I seen Light. Bits. Little. Felt. More I serve, brighter it is. Great Machine knows mercy. Remembers us. Other Eliksni need understand. Our ways not good way. Not way of Light. I learning. Show my people path to Light. Path they with now, Darkness. Guardians kill. Hive kill. My people kill. Soon, no Eliksni left."

Rex nodded. "Your faith is simple."

Mithrax made the shrug gesture. "Faith simple. Believe what not see."

Rex struggled with his loathing of himself. "I don't understand why. Your loyalty is admirable, but ... the Light isn't worth your life. Neither is Darkness."

Mithrax's eyes narrowed. "Strange words for guardian."

Rex said nothing, caught.

Mithrax swayed half a step closer. "I hear you speak female guardian. You no Awoken. You-" He pronounced the Eliksni word for Ahamkara. "Crafty. Treacherous. No loyalty."

Rex shrugged to dismiss these accusations. "It's the nature of my kind. But lately I ..." For some reason, his gaze shifted to Aster, floating quietly at his shoulder. "I hate being this way."

Mithrax gazed at him a long moment. "You feel Light."

"I don't want it. I'm not supposed to ..." Rex gestured at the hatchlings and busy females. "I'm not supposed to care. I don't want to care. But I do, and it troubles me. Which is the true form? The dragon or the man?"

Mithrax gazed at the females and hatchlings for a while. Then he stepped up to Rex, placed a clawed finger under his chin, and tilted his head back, gazing into his eyes from several angles. Rex permitted this.

"You much trouble," Mithrax said at last. "All spinning around, Light and Dark together. You decide true shape. Settle down. Find strength." The Eliksni backed away a step. "But you choose dragon, better leave. Or I kill." He whirled and walked away.

Rex watched him go, jaw clenched. "Seems I'm in danger from everyone."

Aster rolled his eye. "Are you surprised? Your kind made themselves very unpopular. By the way, your ship is almost here, but the Hive are following it in."

Rex Magtoris muttered a curse and ran for the stairs.

* * *

The big cruiser swept in over the ruined buildings, its wings seeming to fill the sky. It extended its landing gear and set down not far from the bunker, a short distance out in the desert.

Aster calibrated the Eliksni transmat station to send cargo to the ship. Guinevere and Mithrax began helping the Eliksni females and hatchlings transmat to the ship and find places for their cargo.

Unfortunately, the Hive had seen the ship fly in and judged it the signal to attack.

Hive thralls swarmed into the old town, hundreds and hundreds of humanoid figures, all muscle, bone, and teeth. Each alien was driven by a worm larva inside it, demanding to be fed with death. Every member of the Hive must kill in order to grow stronger. A thrall, if it fed its worm enough, grew into an acolyte, and from there, could take the Knight or Wizard morph. More power. More death hunger. And always the worms demanded more, or they'd consume their host.

The Guardians fired into the swarm as it flooded up the old streets. Light grenades exploded. Crowds of thralls died and were trampled underfoot by their brethren. They screamed their attack cries and climbed the buildings to reach the guardians. They reached an intersection, and some ran toward the cruiser to destroy it. And they met Rex Magtoris, who had been waiting for them.

He had positioned himself in a choke point, where a narrow street ran between two buildings. It was the quickest way to the bunker and the ship beyond it, and thralls were adept at finding easy paths. He fired in short, accurate bursts, shooting thrall after thrall through the head. Sometimes he killed two or three at a time, when the aliens were packed close enough. Bodies fell in a growing pile, creating a barrier across the narrow street.

Aster hid behind his false guardian, wishing for the hundredth time that he could disappear and keep out of danger. But he couldn't risk setting off the explosive in his shell. So he stuck to Rex and hoped he won the fight.

Mithrax emerged from the bunker behind them, carrying two rifles in his four arms. "Nearly all hatchlings aboard. Few more minutes." He stood beside Rex and added more firepower. His four eyes seemed to be able to track multiple targets at once. He fired his rifles independently and neither one ever missed. Aster watched in awe. The pile of dead thralls grew ever higher.

Timothy cursed over the radio link. "Wizards incoming, and they're bringing ogres. Like ... eight of them. One ogre has some huge machine on its back. We don't have a big enough team for this."

"Fall back to the ship!" Rex said. "We can't defeat them. We only need to delay them."

"I can do that," Siegfried-8 said. The warlock shot into the air above the buildings, summoned a huge purple sphere of void light, and hurled it at the base of an apartment building. The nova bomb punched through the foundation and exploded. The building shifted sideways and collapsed across two blocks, crushing thralls and blocking roads. A second building collapsed. Dust blinded Hive and Guardian alike.

Uldren and Timothy came running out of the dust, gripping their weapons and panting. Uldren's cloak had several new holes in it. "My ghost can't work a transmat. There's a jamming signal."

"Transmat station in the bunker," Rex said. "It's shielded by the concrete walls. Go."

Timothy and Uldren ducked into the airlock. The swarm of attacking thralls stopped for a moment, cut off by the toppled building, and the Guardians had a breathing space.

As Rex and Mithrax reloaded, a single Eliksni vandal crawled out of the wreckage. It called to them in its own language.

Mithrax held up a hand to Rex. "Not shoot. He comes peace."

Rex recognized the vandal whose wish he had granted. "Yes, I know. Get him to the ship."

Mithrax rushed to the vandal, who was several sizes smaller than he was. They spoke in rapid Eliksni, then hurried to the bunker's airlock.

A moment later, Siegfried-8 arrived, his robes spattered with black thrall blood. "They're regrouping, getting ready to hit us hard."

"Transmat to the ship, station in the basement," Rex said. "I'll be the rearguard. Tell me when you're all aboard, I'll be right behind you."

The words were barely out of his mouth when the Hive army burst upon them from the west, flooding out of the dust from multiple directions. Thralls, Knights with swords and shields of bone, Wizards hurling death bolts, and huge, lumbering ogres, their compound eyes able to burn and kill with merely a long look. One ogre carried a tower of black machinery on its shoulders, glowing with green soul fire. This was the source of the transmat jamming signal.

Siegfried squeaked and ducked into the airlock. Rex backed up to the door and prepared to fight to the death. He fired with one hand. The other hand he held outward, palm open. Whenever a thrall leaped past his rifle, it struck a shield of mingled energies around Rex's body. Unlike a shield of Light, this one burned anything that touched it, sucking energy from them and empowering Rex. Many thralls hurled themselves against it, sizzled in a burst of purple, and died.

His shield didn't fare so well against the Darkness Blasts from wizards, or the Necromantic Gaze of the ogres. Even the power of the Awoken couldn't stand up to such concentrated evil. So Rex used the bodies of thralls as meat shields against them. The ogre with the jammer stayed well back, out of Rex's line of fire.

Panting, Rex said over the radio, "Are you aboard yet?"

"Still catching a few hatchlings," Guinevere reported.

"It's getting hot out here!" Rex exclaimed. "Hurry up!"

"If you would rather chase a lot of giggling baby aliens, be my guest."

A Knight in bone armor stomped through the dead thralls and swung at Rex with its lethal sword. He ducked and wove, firing, his bullets glancing off its breastplate.

"Your ghost can resurrect you if you go down," Timothy said. "The Hive really hate that."

"No, it can't," Uldren said suddenly. "Rex isn't a Guardian."

"Now isn't the time to discuss this!" Rex yelled, dismay flooding him. Had Guinevere betrayed him? The guardians would kill him, now. He hit the Knight's three eyes with a hand burning with mingled Light and Darkness. It bellowed and reeled backward, smoke pouring from its face.

"Not a guardian?" the others were saying. "But he has a ghost!"

"It's not his ghost," Uldren said. "My ghost figured them out. Rex is an Ahamkara."

"Traveler's Light! We've been working with a dragon all this time?"

"That's not important right now," Guinevere's voice cut across them. "Rex, get to the ship. We're aboard."

Rex flung the door open and leaped into the airlock. As he did, all eight ogres fixed their destructive gaze on the bunker.

The concrete crumbled, aging twelve centuries in as many seconds. Inside the airlock, Rex watched helplessly as cracks snaked across the walls and ceiling. The supports groaned. "Come on!" he yelled, throwing himself against the inner door.

With grinding slowness, the inner door slid halfway open. Rex forced his shoulders through, grabbed Aster, and threw him down the stairwell.

The door and airlock collapsed with a roar. The lights went out. All was darkness and dust, terror, and the hideous grinding and crashing of splinting concrete.

Silence fell. Rex lifted his head. He was half-buried in the rubble, his head and shoulders in the dark on the inside of the airlock. The rest of him was being steadily crushed under the weight of the collapsed ceiling.

Aster flew up the staircase, his headlight making a bright beam through the dust-laden air. "That was too close. And you ... you saved me."

"Less talk," Rex gasped. "More rescue."

The distant sounds of scratching carried through the stone. The thralls were digging for Rex, and rescue was not their intent.

Aster played his light over his companion and the concrete pinning him. "We're shielded from the jamming signal in here. I might be able to transmat you to the ship. But you're buried so deep, I might only partially transmat you. We don't want to leave half of you behind."

The rubble was slowly crushing Rex, cracking his ribs, grinding the air from his lungs. Worse, the digging thralls outside had just unearthed his left leg. Their teeth and claws sank into his flesh. He gave a whispering cry and struggled feebly, but the rubble held him in place.

"Aster," he whispered. "Open your shell."

The ghost obeyed. Groaning, because he lacked breath to scream, Rex clawed the sticky explosive putty out of the shell. He slapped it onto a chunk of concrete to his left. Then, still making a terrible sound of pain, he pulled the deadman switch off his wrist. Aster closed his shell, and Rex hung the bracelet around his topmost segment. "Disappear. Hurry."

Aster hung there for a second, staring at him. Rex was going to try to free himself and probably die in the attempt. Their roles had reversed. Now the dragon was wired to explode, and the ghost held the trigger. For a fleeting instant, Aster wondered if this had been the plan all along. That loneliness and fear he had glimpsed in Rex ... that tiny flicker of goodness. All of it had led to this sacrifice. A sharp pang of grief pierced Aster's heart.

"I'm sorry," Aster whispered, and phased into nothing in a swirl of blue particles.

The detonator, free of the signal that had held it in check, went off.

Flash. Crack. Impact and pain.

Aster returned at once. The rubble shifted and Rex's body rolled free, but he had nearly blown himself in half, his torso laid open. His left leg had been eaten away to the knee, and his right leg was missing a foot. There was blood everywhere.

Aster made a tiny cry and transmatted his false guardian, and himself, to the ship.


	7. Chapter 7: A final wish

Guinevere screamed when Rex arrived, bleeding and mostly dead. She set about applying tourniquets to the stumps of his leg and foot and trying to patch together the huge tear in his torso.

The rest of the team got the cruiser off the ground and ran for Earth, leaving the Hive snarling and disappointed on the moon.

Aster hid in phase and watched. The ship grew quiet but for the rumble of engines. The female Eliksni and hatchlings watched, silent, as Guinevere worked over Rex, trying to save his ebbing life.

"He deserved it," Aster tried to tell himself. "He was a wish dragon, out to feed on anyone he could." But Rex had treated the ghost well enough, except for the explosive. And even that was gone, now. Rex had used it on himself. The beautiful, star-studded shell was Aster's to keep.

Aster was free to seek his guardian. Yet, he couldn't leave his false guardian to die alone. So he floated nearby and watched.

He stood quiet vigil as the ship landed, and Mithrax spoke with a House Dusk Archon about taking in the females and hatchlings. The Archon was shocked that the clan of Kravicks had not only been spared, but relocated by Guardians.

The Guardians stood by in silence as a party of vandals and dregs entered the ship to escort the females and hatchlings. The Guardians had never seen adult Eliksni allow themselves to be covered head to toe in gleeful, chirping hatchlings, and walk off that way. The ship was emptied in minutes.

Afterward, the fireteam flew a few miles off and set down again at the edge of a forest.

"Let Rex die surrounded by nature," Guinevere said. "It will make burying him easier."

Nobody argued.

* * *

Rex awoke to pain - stabbing, burning, crushing, aching pain. He could breathe, but it was the only thing left in his body that still worked.

They'd landed on Earth somewhere. Blue sky overhead. Trees cast cool shade over him. He lay on green grass, and Guinevere knelt beside him. Aster floated nearby.

Rex smiled. "So we made it."

"We did," Guinevere said. "The Eliksni found a tribe to shelter them, even though they don't care for Mithrax much."

Rex stretched out one arm and took Guinevere's hand. He searched her face with earnest intensity. "Wish me back. Please."

"Rex ... you're dying. If you transform, the wounds will be even bigger and you'll die faster."

He nodded slightly, even that tiny movement hurting. "I want to die as myself." His desire was nearly strong enough to grant his own wish. The remainder of his life could be measured in minutes.

Guinevere bowed her head, biting her lips. "All right. Rex Magtoris, I wish you were an Ahamkara again."

Her desire wasn't quite aligned with the words - she wished him healed, not transformed - but he took it anyway, fed upon her wish, and used its power to alter his shape, unfolding his quantum structure. His human form expanded into the reptilian body of a young Ahamkara, barely larger than an elephant, huddled on his side with extravagant wounds to his ribs, belly, and hind legs. His back feet were missing, his left hind leg nearly gone. The bandages peeled away and fresh blood flowed from the wounds. His wings flapped feebly, once, then settled over him like a limp blanket.

Guinevere bit her lips and pulled his head into her lap. His narrow, wedge-shaped head was the length of her arm. His four eyes glowed the same green as in his Awoken form. He gazed up at her, panting with pain, his jaws half open, exposing the teeth and beginnings of tusks. His blue scales glowed a little. Such a young dragon, struck down like many others in the Great Hunt.

"Why did you allow this?" she whispered, stroking the fine scales on his cheekbone. "You could have saved yourself. You didn't have to protect us."

The green, crystalline eyes fixed on her. His throat worked as he remembered how speech worked in this body. His voice was deeper. "I don't know. I just knew ... I had to. It was probably ... what Mithrax said. The Light." He started to chuckle, but stopped as it hurt. "An Ahamkara touched by the Light. I should be ashamed of myself."

"Don't be." Guinevere stroked his slender neck. "You always were the only decent Ahamkara I ever knew. Now I know it for sure. Where have you been all these years?"

His voice was weaker. "Reef Satrap. Helping the Awoken build homes. Mara Sov gave me a position."

"Helping." Guinevere shook her head. "Building. Not feeding on people?"

"You can see I did not. I've grown ... no larger. Their desires tasted ... dry." The green fire in his eyes began to dim, as did the life-fire in his scales. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "I became ... too human. It frightened me."

"And now you're dying as a dragon," Guinevere whispered. "Are you happy now?"

His dimming eyes wandered, looking at the treetops, the woods, and the ghost floating nearby. His awareness seemed to drift, his eyes unfocused. After a moment, he shook himself awake again.

"No," he murmured, lifting his head. "No, I'm not happy. I was needlessly cruel." He swung his head toward the ghost and had to rest his chin in the grass, shudders rippling through his body. "Aster. I'm sorry. About the explosive. I didn't know ... you were loyal. You didn't have to be. Ghosts are good people."

Aster flew down to the dragon's range of vision and looked sorrowfully at the suffering being. "You released me from the cage. And you never actually hurt me, even if you are a conniving skunk of a lizard. In the end, the explosive was useful."

"It was," Rex laughed, wheezing. A few white sparks flew out of his mouth. "Maybe my ... my foresight hadn't entirely failed. My farce is ended. Thank you ... for the part you played. Keep the shell ... as payment. Or sell it. Remember me ... kindly, if you can."

Aster nodded and backed away, blinking.

Rex returned his head to Guinevere's lap. "I want you to have my ship. My gear. It's all good quality. Worth glimmer. Get you back on your feet ... as a Guardian."

Guinevere nodded, unable to speak.

"And your ghost," he added, his eyes beginning to sink into his skull and glaze over. "Take care ... your ghost. Ghosts are good people." He drew a deep breath that rattled deep inside him. "Best get some distance. When we die, we burn."

Guinevere bent over the dragon's head and kissed the ridge over his eye. She slid his head to the ground, trying to jostle him as little as possible. But Rex's neck was already lifelessly limp, the eyes staring at nothing.

Guinevere moved to a safe distance. Aster joined her.

Rex coughed once. Then he relaxed, the whole long body wilting and somehow growing a little smaller. The fire beneath the scales erupted with a flash, consuming the corpse in a pyre of its own making.

"He wasn't so bad," Aster said. "I'm sad that that's the only eulogy I have for him."

"As far as the Ahamkara can be good, he was," Guinevere said, wiping away tears over and over. "Helping the Awoken. I'd never have thought it of him."

"He paid a million glimmer for me," Aster said. "Spider had me for sale."

"You poor thing." Guinevere smiled ruefully, they swiped at her eyes again. "I'm still crying over the fool. At least I bought him an extra century."

Smoke filled the clearing under the trees. The dragon body burned away in blue-hot flames, leaving only a charred skeleton.

As the fire slowly died down, Aster gazed at it, his enhanced vision studying the patterns of Light and Darkness among the bones.

Deep in the ribcage, where the dragon's heart had been, burned Light. A spark.

Aster ventured closer in disbelief. Guinevere watched him. "What's the matter?"

"His spark," Aster whispered. "He's ... he could be a Guardian. Mine."

"Do you want him?" Guinevere asked.

Aster hung there, staring at the spark, wondering at the Traveler's strange will that would grant him a wish dragon as a partner. Or had it been his own foolish wish, granted him at his first meeting with Rex? Either way, he could always refuse. Return to the wilds, leave this spark for some other ghost to find.

No - he couldn't do that. He had seen something good in Rex, had wished for that good man to be his Guardian. And even while a dragon, Rex had displayed devotion, sacrifice, and a willing to do right, even when it cost him. He would make an admirable partner.

As he stared at the spark, Aster realized that he would have the power to rebuild either body - Awoken or dragon. And Rex might not even remember his dual nature.

Aster made his decision in a split second. He opened his shell and poured resurrection Light into that spark, building a body around it - the body of the Awoken man Rex had been.

"One more time," Aster whispered.

* * *

A disoriented young Guardian opened his eyes in the smoldering remains of a dragon skeleton in a forest glade. He scrambled out of the hot ash, frantically brushing it off his leather armor and cloak, to find a little robot waiting for him.

"Hello!" said the robot. "I'm your ghost, Aster. Do you remember your name?"

The Guardian raised a hand to his head. "No, I ... I can't remember anything." His mind was a vast blank, a fresh start, ready to be written with the good deeds and heroism of the Light's Chosen.

"Do you want me to name you?" the ghost asked.

"Please," the Guardian said in relief.

Aster tilted his shell in a smile. "Gilgamesh Magtoris Rex."

The Guardian thought about it. "You know ... I like it. Better just call me Rex."

"All right, Rex." Aster turned, indicating a woman dressed in rags, her hair cropped in a ragged mohawk. "This is Guinevere, over here. She's another Guardian and she can help us."

Guinevere was standing with both hands over her mouth. As Rex approached, she dropped them to her sides and put on her most casual expression. "Hello, Rex. Pleased to meet you."

Rex took her hand and avidly studied her face. "Hello, Gwen. Have we met before? You seem familiar."

She tried to hide a smile. "Maybe in another life. Come on, let's go to your - I mean my ship."

And Rex followed her.

* * *

Author's note: This could be the end. Or it could be a beginning. Should this story continue, following the new Rex who has no idea that he's a dragon?


End file.
